


The Stars Walk Backward

by Jellyfax



Category: Star Trek
Genre: Angst, Drabbles, M/M, Major character death - Freeform, More angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-23
Updated: 2013-07-23
Packaged: 2017-12-21 03:06:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/895050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jellyfax/pseuds/Jellyfax
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>James Tiberius Kirk was like a storm. He blew into your life, a tirade of chaos, wild, reckless, unyielding and devastating, leaving the wreck of your life in his wake. Once James Tiberius Kirk was in your life things were never going to be the same again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Stars Walk Backward

**Author's Note:**

> So this started as just drabbles on Tumblr, originally submitted on anon to someone's ask, then I wrote a bit more, then I got carried away and here we are! I don't normally like writing about death or too much angst but someone on Tumblr asked for angst and I just kind of wrote it. I hope you enjoy it (or at least feel some sort of emotion from it)

James Tiberius Kirk was like a storm. He blew into your life, a tirade of chaos, wild, reckless, unyielding and devastating, leaving the wreck of your life in his wake. Once James Tiberius Kirk was in your life things were never going to be the same again.  
  
He was, most frustratingly, completely illogical in every action he took. It was clear to just about anybody that he had a complete lack of respect for any form of authority and thought of rules and regulations as no more than rough guidelines. Working with him often left his First Officer with the feeling that somewhere there was a rule book which Kirk was using as a personal checklist, crossing off each line as he systematically broke them one by one. If Spock were not a Vulcan he would have lost count of the number of times the Captain had disregarded Starfleet regulation, however he was and he knew that Kirk had gone against General Orders 1, 6, 12, 13 and on Seven different occasions General Order 15. He had deliberately disobeyed the Prime Directive on no fewer than Eleven occasions and Regulations 7, 619 and 476.9 had all been left unheeded on One, Four and Two occasions respectively.  
  
He was charming and good looking for a Terran, his sandy hair always dishevelled and his glaucous eyes bright and arrant, but he was headstrong , proud and arrogant and too certain of himself. They grated. Spock was steady in his manner, fastidious and isolated. Kirk was loud, brash and seemingly laid-back in everything he did. He didn’t care much for formalities and, in his opinion, if it made him happy that was a good enough reason to do most anything.  
  
In short Captain Kirk was infuriating in every way possible. From the smug grins and flirtatious side glances that he shot both male and female members of the crew, to the blatant disregard for his health and general well-being, often in favour of another crew member or simply because he seemed to care so little about himself in relation to the way he cared about others. This was the first positive thing that Spock noted about him, despite his flagrant rule breaking he was a more than adequate captain. He cared deeply about each and every crew member and mourned every loss as though he had had a deep emotional connection to every victim. It bothered his First Officer that he would put himself under such emotional strain when the integrity of the ship relied on his ability to command. However the most disturbing thing the Vulcan found was the way he _had_ to touch. Whether it was the gentle press of his hand reassuringly on an ensign’s shoulder or the casual affection of his fingers brushing the forearm of a close friend or romantic acquaintance, the physical contact was 38% more frequent than the general average aboard the Enterprise. Yet instead of unnerving the crew it seemed to lift their spirits, enlighten and revive them in a way Spock could not quite fathom. The most curious thing of all was that every touch burned, because James Tiberius Kirk wasn’t just a storm, he was so much more than that. He was like a solar wind, he was like the heart of a star, fiery and passionate and burning so brightly that sometimes it hurt to look at him. Spock found this analogy perturbing. Not only because it was absurdly poetic in nature, but also because it was _he_ who thought of it. Vulcans were not, by nature, poetic and yet there was … something in Spock that flared up whenever the Captain was around. There was something about the way he never gave up no matter how dire the situation, when everyone else had given up and the situation deemed hopeless, he pulled through. He had once said that he did not believe in “no win scenarios”, which would be illogical if the Captain did not engineer every situation to his favour. It was a skill that should have been impossible and yet with Kirk it simply became … improbable.  
  
He loved so certainly, no half measures, with every fibre of his being and he showed it. In him there was more raw emotion than any one person should have contained within them and they were there for the world to see. Spock had never understood the meaning of a phrase his mother used to say, until he met Captain Kirk. For if the ridiculous Human notion that the seat of all emotions lay in the chest cavity, hidden deep in the muscle that pumped the iron-rich blood around their vascular system were in fact true, then James Tiberius Kirk could truly be the man to wear his heart on his sleeve.  
  
For countless people of many species such emotion was inconceivable, and yet wherever the Captain found himself they would all gravitate towards him, some falling for him, other’s ricocheting off his carefully armoured exterior, but all aching for that burning touch of his, to taste for just a moment that pure unfettered joy that was James Tiberius Kirk. And no one ached for it the way Spock did.  
  
He found his touch had a fevered sweetness, and it left him with a desperate hollowness and a burning deep in his heart (that illogical Human notion once again, and yet the tightness in his side was a dull pain that he could not ignore). He had hated the man at first, if hate was an emotion that he could truly know, and the border of Hate is a fickle, faint line. A Vulcan’s mind is a calm desert, filled with a quiet stillness, warm and dry and forever devoid of the chaos that inhabited so many minds. One touch from James Tiberius Kirk destroyed that illusion of calm. A glancing of skin on skin, the brush of a hand, a whisper leant just too closely, anything would whip up a sandstorm in Spock’s subconscious. He made him _feel_ , and not in a way that ended with the contact. When he was considered lost, missing in action, or confirmed as dead it made him anxious, angry, and sick to his stomach with worry and sadness. When the Captain returned, seemingly inevitably, to them a feeling of calm, relief and happiness washed over him in a way that required many hours of rigorous meditation to quell.  
  
If it were not enough that Spock’s mind was in turmoil, every touch also provided a glimpse into Kirk’s own mind. Where Spock’s mind was warm and dry and still, Kirk’s was lush and chaotic, filled with life, constantly shifting and changing, even in his sleep his mind called to Spock, begging to be touched, to be explored and nurtured and admired. Spock had so often found himself bored amongst humans, their little psi-null minds dull and unchallenging, their thoughts indecipherable amongst the mess their subconscious created to deal with day to day life. But the captain’s mind was so bright and so _clear,_ filled with thoughts and feelings and ideas. Spock wanted to fill not only his mind but his mouth and eyes and skin and lungs with it. He wanted to drown in it. His intelligence and clarity was constantly warring with his primal need to protect and to care and it fascinated the Vulcan. He couldn’t simply _do_ , he had to _experience_. It was something that he had never seen in another being, let alone in a Human. James Tiberius Kirk had a façade, a mask he wore to protect the man he truly was, and to protect the people he truly cared about. To the rest of the world he was reckless, flirtatious and promiscuous, skipping classes and breaking the law, but he had always come out on top, because he had such innate intelligence, such a thirst for knowledge, there was nothing he could not do if he set his mind to it. There was hurt there too, pain, abandonment, heartbreak, all buried beneath the surface. Without his pain he was untouchable, but no one could reach him from his island, forever cut off from anyone who didn’t know the truth. Spock wished, sometimes, that everyone could see Jim the way he saw him. That they could see how his mind works, how intricate and detailed each and every thought was, because it was fascinating. He was fascinating.  
  
With this new found curiosity Spock found himself wanting to spend more time with the Captain. He spoke more with him outside of Alpha Shift, he ate in the mess rather than in his quarters, sitting beside Kirk, enjoying the ebb and flow if easy conversation that passed between the Captain and his close friends. Jim was especially close with Doctor McCoy, he called him _Bones_ and teased him about his job and his romantic acquaintances (or rather lack of it, if Spock was correct in his deductions). His expressions were soft and warm, creases forming around his eyes from hours of laughing and smiling with the people he cared about most. Spock liked the creases, he traced them with his eyes, the laughter around his eyes and mouth, the furrows of his brow and forehead from concentration and worry. His entire life story was written on his face and after a time Spock found that he knew every line.  
  
What surprised Spock the most was how the Captain welcomed his friendship so easily. In the beginning they had been frosty, argumentative and brusque with each other and yet that had melted away with the simple offer of a game of chess. Kirk was infuriatingly good at the game and on several occasions Spock lost, much to his dismay. However, this only spurred him on, desperate to discover more about this person that challenged him in ways he had never thought possible.  
  
The chess games became evenings spent in the Captain’s quarters. They spoke for hours about all sorts of things, they discussed theories and papers and joked over steaming mugs of tea and the odd glass of scotch. Spock became Kirk’s confidante, where he would have gone to the Doctor, now he found himself outside his First Officer’s door. They had grown from strangers to friends and Spock was loath to admit it but it brought him more joy than any other relationship he had ever been a part of.  
  
There was something else though. Over time there was a warmth that accompanied this strange companionship of theirs. A low heat that pooled in his gut at the sight of the Captain, a pang of want, of _need_. But he would never accept it. No Vulcan ever truly could. Pon Farr was the only time any Vulcan could accept the primal desires of their race, and if one ignored the teachings of Surak, surrendered to the lust and the anger and the jealousy, all was lost. He would never accept, as his father had, the love he felt for such an illogical human. Yet as he held that force of nature in his arms, the dust of the yellow planet swirling around them, the sound of phaser-fire loud and whining in his ears. As he watched the brightest star he had ever had the privilege of encountering fade in front of him. As he felt that alien red soaking his clothes black, knowing that the apparent inevitability of their Captain always returning to them was not as apparent as the young man and his crew had come to believe. As he could see every touch of their skin, every laugh, every smile, every moment they had together flash before his eyes, taunting him with the _what ifs_ and the _if onlys_. As he felt the storm die down and the flame in his heart flicker and extinguish, he wished for a moment that he had.


End file.
